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- SYSOP'S NOTE: The following file is the complete text of a letter sent
- by Dr. Michael Aquino to CBS after they aired a made-for-TV movie
- entitled "Do You Know the Muffin Man?" This movie was a fictional
- account of a "typical" ritualized child abuse case in a "typical"
- day-care center, modelled closely after the allegations in the McMartin,
- Bakersfield, and Akron scandals. Dr. Aquino's letter thoroughly rebuts
- these charges.
-
- No response from CBS had been received as of 12/18/89.
-
- This letter is reprinted with permission of the author, who asked me to
- point out that documentation for everything he says in here is available
- on request to the address shown. -- J. Brad Hicks, Sysop WeirdBase
- ______________________________________________________________________________
-
- TEMPLE OF SET
- Post Office Box 4507, St. Louis, MO 63108 * MCI-Mail: 278-4041 * Telex: 6502784041
-
- Michael A. Aquino, Ph.D.
- High Priest of Set October 25, 1989 CE
-
- Programming Department
- CBS Television
- 51 West 52nd Street
- New York, New York 10019
-
- Dear Sirs:
-
- Your broadcasting of the television-movie DO YOU KNOW THE MUFFIN MAN? on
- October 22 displayed extremely shocking bias and disregard for the truth. To
- the extent that this film is interpreted by audiences to represent the general
- truth behind the epidemic of day-care "Satanic child abuse" witch-hunts which
- have convulsed this country for the last several years, you will be
- responsible for the encouragement of further injustices of the most traumatic
- kind on innocent people falsely accused of such horrors.
-
- You may shrug this off by citing the fine-print disclaimer at the end of
- the film that this was a "fictional" drama. Yet the references to real-life
- incidents ("the Presidio, El Paso, and West Point") in the film as though they
- were proven examples of the kind of crime depicted, coupled with the TV GUIDE
- and on-screen announcement that "according to government statistics some
- 39,000 children were sexually abused last year", made it clear that the film
- was to be understood as thinly-fictionalized "docu-drama".
-
- From McMartin onward, the epidemic of day-care "child abuse" scares has
- been characterized by spontaneous and violent attack upon chosen targets the
- moment they are selected. Presumably child sexual abuse is so heinous a crime,
- as witchcraft during the middle ages, that it is unthinkable for anyone to be
- accused of it unless he or she is indeed guilty. Everyone wants to go on
- record as denouncing such individuals vigorously, lest one become suspect
- oneself for not showing sufficient enthusiasm for the hunt. On the other hand,
- no individual or official wants to take responsibility for stating that the
- alleged abuse did not occur.
-
- Permit me to itemize the more conspicuous fallacies of Muffin Man:
-
- (1) YOUR TV GUIDE/ON-SCREEN ANNOUNCEMENT THAT "FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH
- ESTIMATES THAT APPROXIMATELY 39,000 CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF SIX ARE SEXUALLY
- ABUSED IN THE UNITED STATES EACH YEAR" IS MISLEADING, IMPLYING AS IT DOES THAT
- "DAY-CARE SATANIC" EVENTS SUCH AS THAT DEPICTED IN THE FILM ARE THE PROBLEM.
-
- What your announcement failed to state is that THE VAST MAJORITY OF SUCH
- CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE OCCURS IN THE HOME, NOT IN DAY-CARE CENTERS. According to
- David Finkelhor, Associate Director of the Family Violence Research Program,
- University of New Hampshire, the primary threat of sexual molestation comes
- from MEMBERS OF THE CHILD'S FAMILY, NOT FROM PORNOGRAPHERS OR PEDOPHILES WHO
- ARE STRANGERS. Projection of such crimes upon day-care personnel may be a
- device to cover up incest, or to destroy women's options for child-care
- outside the home, thus forcing them away from personal/professional lives of
- their own and back to the fundamentalist model of "a woman's place". In CHILD
- SEXUAL ABUSE: NEW THEORY & RESEARCH, Finkelhor writes:
-
- In many respects the moralists were mistaken about the problem, since
- they portrayed the greatest danger to children as coming from strangers
- and depraved individuals outside the family, not from within the family,
- where, as recently documented, the more serious threat is.
-
- (2) USE OF ROLAND SUMMIT AS THE SOLE CONSULTANT TO THE FILM.
-
- Dr. Roland Summit testifies so consistently for any accusation of "child
- abuse" that he has become nationally known as the "prosecution doctor". (Cf.
- Paul & Shirley Eberle, THE POLITICS OF CHILD ABUSE, Lyle Stuart 1986.) He now
- has a distinguished record of participating in several celebrated "child abuse
- industry" scandals in which scores of innocent people were randomly accused,
- put through nightmarish ordeals, and professionally ruined.
-
- Why did you not also consult some of the many distinguished physicians who
- expose and deplore the "child abuse industry", such as Dr. Lee Coleman,
- Director of the Center for the Study of Psychiatric Testimony in Berkeley,
- California? Were you afraid that you might discover "inconvenient" facts which
- invalidate the pre-determined theme of the film?
-
- (3) SCARRING IN RECTUM AS EVIDENCE OF CHILD-RAPE.
-
- This was presented in the film as "conclusive proof" that one of the
- children had been raped. In the case of at least one real-life witch-hunt -
- that at the Presidio of San Francisco - it was also used in the case of the
- child whose parents originally instigated the scare. Later on the physician
- who originally diagnosed the child's rectum as injured retracted that
- diagnosis on a television news documentary. By that time, of course, the
- witch-hunt was in full swing and no one paid attention to this inconvenient
- development.
-
- Dr. John McCann, Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the
- University of California, San Francisco, has produced a study that reveals far
- more normal variations in the vaginal and rectal areas of children than most
- physicians are aware of. He and his assistants examined the vaginal and rectal
- areas of some 250 prepubertal children with no history of sexual molestation
- and found that "private parts - particularly girls' genitals - can be as
- variable from person to person as noses or breasts". Responsible physicians
- are accordingly becoming more cautious about diagnosing "rape" from such
- variations. See the article in MS magazine, March 1989.
-
- (4) PARENTS' AND INTERROGATORS' REFUSAL TO ACCEPT DENIALS OF ATTACK BY
- CHILDREN.
-
- As your film showed, this is a staple of "day-care child abuse"
- witch-hunts. Once their minds are made up, zealots simply keep working the
- children over, again and again, for months or years if necessary, until the
- children are ready to say anything expected of them. Moreover any statement at
- all from such children which can be "interpreted" by parents or "therapists"
- into sexual context is construed as "evidence". MUFFIN MAN presented this as a
- perfectly normal and acceptable practice.
-
- As the MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL noted on January 20, 1988 as part of its
- 6-part series on the "child-abuse" epidemic:
-
- Investigators in El Paso sometimes refused to accept denials,
- retractions, or silence from children. They attributed those actions to
- stress-related "avoidance" behavior or to the "child sexual abuse
- accommodation syndrome", a controversial doctrine that says abuse
- victims inevitably recant allegations.
-
- The COMMERCIAL APPEAL further observed that:
-
- Luiz Natalicio, an El Paso psychologist who evaluated tapes of
- interviews in the abuse case there, compares the questioning techniques
- to those used by Communist Chinese forces on American soldiers captured
- during the Korean War. Like the POWs, children in the El Paso case were
- isolated in unfamiliar and usually barren surroundings. They believed
- their release from questioning, and satisfying such needs as drinking
- water and going to the bathroom, depended upon whether they provided
- information, Natalicio said. "If we can do it with adults, you can
- imagine how effective it can be with children, who are dependent on us
- totally for their conception of reality," said Natalicio, a former
- University of Texas professor who taught courses on the psychological
- aspects of interrogation.
-
- (5) TRANSPORT OF CHILDREN FROM DAY-CARE CENTERS TO REMOTE SITES FOR MOLESTING.
-
- This invention was created by accusers to explain away the inconvenient
- fact that day-care centers are generally open places with lots of observation
- and access, parents and children coming and going, and no opportunities for
- molesting, much less elaborate "Satanic rituals".
-
- Merely proposing such an idiotic "explanation" does not validate it, no
- matter how often it is tried. Not one "witch-hunt" has validated this absurd
- allegation. So why did your movie present it as an "accepted" practice?
-
- (6) INTEREST OF SATANISTS IN CHILD-MOLESTING, PARTICULARLY AT DAY-CARE
- CENTERS.
-
- This must rank with the survival of Elvis Presley as one of the most
- asinine myths of the 1980s. It is in COMPLETE CONTRADICTION to the official,
- published doctrines of the Satanic religion, as contained in Anton LaVey's
- SATANIC BIBLE of the old Church of Satan (1966-1975) and in the CRYSTAL TABLET
- of the contemporary Temple of Set (1975-present):
-
- Under no circumstances would a Satanist sacrifice any animal or baby.
- There are sound and logical reasons why Satanists would not perform such
- sacrifices. Mankind is the godhead to the Satanist. The purest form of
- existence reposes in the bodies of animals and human children who have
- not grown old enough to deny themselves their natural desires. They can
- perceive things that the average human being can never hope to.
- Therefore the Satanist holds these beings in a sacred regard, knowing
- that he can learn much from these natural magicians of the world.
- The Satanist is aware of conventional religions' universal custom of
- killing their gods. The Satanist, however, does not hate himself nor his
- gods, and has no desire to destroy himself or anything for which he
- stands. It is for this reason that he would never willfully harm an
- animal or child.
- The Satanist would not intentionally hurt others by violating their
- sexual rights. If you attempt to impose your sexual desires upon others
- who do not welcome your advances, you are infringing upon their sexual
- freedom. Therefore Satanism does not advocate rape, child molesting,
- sexual defilement of animals, or any other form of sexual activity which
- entails the participation of those who are unwilling or whose innocence
- or naòvetÄ would allow them to be intimidated or misguided into doing
- something against their wishes. - SATANIC BIBLE
-
- Children should not be allowed to attend any Black Magical ritual.
- They will not understand it, may be frightened by it, and may wrongly
- represent it to others. Pets may be present only if they may be depended
- upon to enhance, not to disrupt the atmosphere. Under no circumstances
- is any life-form ever sacrificed or injured in a Black Magical ritual of
- the Temple of Set. Violation of this rule will result in the offender's
- immediate expulsion and referral to law-enforcement or animal protection
- authorities. - CRYSTAL TABLET OF SET
-
- The senior Supervisory Special Agent of the FBI in charge of "Satanic
- abuse" investigations is Kenneth Lanning, FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia. As
- the MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL reported on January 18, 1988:
-
- Lanning said he was perplexed by the growth of such stories with no
- evidence to support them. "Some people believe there is large-scale
- abduction of children," Lanning said, "that individuals are going around
- snatching little children, keeping them captive, transporting them to
- other locations where they're being murdered in Satanic rituals. Is that
- possible? I guess it's possible. Is it probable? I don't see any
- evidence of it."
-
- While Lanning has patiently repeated this authoritative statement any
- number of times since then, it seems that anti-Satanism fanatics are
- determined not to hear it. I understand that some of them, furious over this
- "inconvenience", have simply labeled Lanning a Satanist himself (which he is
- not) and continued their campaigns. This is in keeping with medieval practice,
- in which anyone daring to defend an accused witch was simply accused in turn.
-
- The theme of "sexual abuse of children" has been loosely used as
- hate-propaganda by Christianity for centuries against any other religion it
- wished to slander. Along with "child sacrifice", it was a theme used
- aggressively against the Jews up to World War II, after which time Nazi
- violence against that religion made it unfashionable for Christians to openly
- attack it. The Satanic religion, on the other hand, appears still to be
- considered an appropriate target for such slander.
-
- The effect of such hate-propaganda, of course, is to create a social
- atmosphere in which Satanists must fear any association with children
- whatever, whether their own or someone else's. While Christians may
- indoctrinate their children with Christian ideology - including at the many
- day-care centers run by Christian churches - any hint that Satanists might
- even be DISCUSSING their religion with their children, much less teaching it
- to them, is guaranteed to provoke social and, to the extent it can be
- effected, official persecution.
-
- As it happens, neither the old Church of Satan nor the current Temple of
- Set ever operated any programs for minors, nor accepted them as members.
- Nevertheless it is outrageous that Christians should expect us to accept a
- social climate in which ONLY they, not anyone else, can discuss religion with
- children.
-
- Also as it happens, the religion with a PROVEN RECORD of child sexual abuse
- by its officials is CHRISTIANITY, not Satanism. I am talking not about mere
- allegations, but about PROSECUTIONS and CONVICTIONS - and also about official
- policies to cover up such crimes when they have occurred. To take just the
- Catholic Church as an example: In the December 30/31, 1988 SAN JOSE MERCURY
- NEWS, court records and sworn testimony in civil and criminal cases involving
- 35 priests in dioceses across the U.S. over the past five years - most since
- 1985 - show that in one or more cases Catholic Church officials have:
-
- * Ignored parental complaints that a child has been molested.
- * Failed to inform authorities, even though most states have laws
- requiring that such complaints be passed along to police or child
- welfare agencies.
- * Transferred the offending priest to another parish or other
- church-owned facility, such as a hospital or school, without warning
- parents in the new location of the trouble in the old parish, and
- often without even requiring the priest to stay away from children.
- * Refused to help priests who have asked for psychological help.
- * Attempted to discredit parents who complained, even when parish
- officials knew of earlier complaints against the priest in question.
- * Fought, usually with success, to make sure that the files in civil
- lawsuits against the church are sealed and that settlements remain
- secret even after the payment of millions of dollars in claims
- * Failed to seek out probable victims and declined to turn over files
- containing information about accusations of other molestations to
- attorneys suing the church.
-
- Catholic Father Thomas Doyle, a Washington, D.C. priest and canon lawyer
- who has looked into the issue of pedophiliac priests, told the MERCURY NEWS he
- knows of about 200 Catholic priests who have molested children in the past 4-5
- years. He said that as many as 3,000 priests could be pedophiles.
-
- F. Ray Mouton, a lawyer working with Doyle, added:
-
- I have consulted with dioceses and Catholic religious orders from
- every part of this country, and it is my impression that there is not
- one single, solitary bishop or vicar in this country who has not dealt
- with the problem of a pedophiliac priest under his supervision.
- Conservatively I would estimate that in the last several years, hundreds
- of priests and other clerics have been discovered as pedophiles, leaving
- a trail of thousands of Catholic child victims.
-
- The SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS provided the following examples [among others]:
-
- * In 1987 priest Roger Trott, Diocese of Greensburg, Pennsylvania
- pleaded guilty to one count of corrupting a minor, a 13-year-old altar
- boy, in a plea arrangement providing for no jail time. Afterward the
- district attorney discovered that Trott may have molested as many as
- 15 boys. A year before, the diocese reportedly paid $375,000 to two
- families on behalf of children alleged to have been molested by
- another priest, Father Dennis Dellamalva, who was never charged.
- Neither the families who sued nor the diocese would discuss the
- settlement.
- * In 1987 priest Richard Galdon, Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, was
- sentenced to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of
- first-degree aggravated assault and two counts of second degree
- aggravated assault against three boys. Galdon, 57, admitted engaging
- in oral and anal sex with boys for 17 years. DA investigator George
- McGrath said that he talked to 18 boys at a school who said they were
- molested by Galdon.
- * In 1985 priest Carmelo Baltazar, Diocese of Boise, Idaho was sentenced
- to 7 years in prison for luring two teenage boys to his house,
- fondling them, and giving them liquor, drugs, and pornography. He had
- been kicked out of the U.S. Navy (where he had been a chaplain) as
- well as transferred from three previous dioceses for similar conduct.
- An attorney who sued the diocese said that Baltazar's previous job was
- at a hospital in Napa, where he fondled a boy on a dialysis machine.
- Despite being told about this, a Catholic hospital in Boise hired him
- and then took no action after an Episcopalian minister reported to the
- bishop that Baltazar had fondled a boy in double leg traction.
- * In 1987 priest John Salazar, Archdiocese of Los Angeles, was sentenced
- to 6 years in prison for engaging in oral copulation with two altar
- boys. He had been left in his position despite one mother's report
- that her son had been molested in 1985.
- * In 1985 priest Alvin Campbell, Diocese of Springfield, Illinois was
- sentenced to 14 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexually
- abusing 7 boys. Campbell later admitted that he had molested boys for
- more than 20 years.
- * In 1987 priest Walter Weerts, Diocese of Springfield, Illinois was
- sentenced to 6 years in prison for performing oral sex on three
- teenage boys. The diocese paid $2.5 million, one source told the
- MERCURY NEWS, to three families who sued when a pattern of
- transferring him from parish to parish was uncovered. The diocese
- refused to discuss the case.
- * In 1986 priest Ronald Fontenot, Diocese of Spokane, Washington was
- sentenced to 1 year in jail and 2 years in a treatment program after
- teen-age boys complained that he had engaged in oral copulation with
- one and fondled four others.
- * In 1986 priest Andrew Christian, Diocese of Orange, California
- received 5 years' probation on condition he go to a treatment facility
- after being found guilty of 26 counts of child molestation. The church
- never told authorities of abuse reported 3 years earlier, when it sent
- Christian to counseling and did not remove him from supervising boys.
- When the counseling stopped, molestings began.
- * In 1986 priest William O'Connell, Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island
- was sentenced to 1 year in prison and 2 years in a treatment center
- after pleading no contest to 26 counts of sexually abusing 12 boys.
- * In 1985 priest Paul Leech, Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island was
- sentenced to 3 years in prison for molesting 3 boys.
- * In 1986 priest Timothy Slevin, Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. was
- sentenced to 3-12 years after pleading guilty to four counts of
- sodomizing a boy at Sacred Heart Catholic School. Slevin told police
- he sexually abused 6 other boys aged 10-16.
-
- In contrast to this shameful record, there has never been a SINGLE charge
- against or conviction of ANY Satanist for child sexual abuse, anywhere, any
- time. The reason is quite simple: WE DON'T DO IT. Ours is a religion in which
- sex is NOT treated as a religious fetish, nor restricted between consenting
- adults. It is regarded simply as one more bodily function with pleasurable and
- romantic aspects.
-
- (7) PORTRAYAL OF SATANISTS KILLING RABBITS AND FAMILY PETS.
-
- Animal sacrifice is strictly forbidden by this nation's Satanic churches,
- per the above quotes from the Satanic Bible and the Crystal Tablet.
-
- (8) THE FILM'S DISMISSAL OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PRESCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN
- SUDDENLY USING COMPLEX SEXUAL WORDS LIKE "VAGINA".
-
- In fact this is one of the MOST conspicuous indices that the child in
- question has been coached by zealots. As such it is an important indicator
- impeaching the testimony of such children and should not be minimized.
-
- (9) AN OLDER CHILD INSISTING ON THE WITNESS STAND THAT HE HAD "PASSED A
- POLYGRAPH" CONCERNING HIS ALLEGATIONS.
-
- While the film showed the defense lawyer objecting and the objection
- sustained, this scene was clearly added to "substantiate" the older child's
- statements. The reason that polygraph results are not allowed in court, of
- course, is that they are NOT reliable. There are many reasons why they may
- give false readings. The history of their use in child-abuse witch-hunts is
- that they are ignored by prosecutors if they support the accused person's
- innocence and are treated as "proof overwhelming all other evidence" if the
- accused is judged to have flunked.
-
- As Washington columnist James Kilpatrick recently reported in his column:
-
- A witness for the American Medical Association testified that the
- results of such examinations are "only somewhat better than chance".
- Another estimated that polygraph machines wrongfully hang a label of
- "liar" on at least 400,000 honest persons every year.
- A Senate report described the problems. A standard polygraph records
- changes in blood pressure, respiration patterns, and sweat. By analyzing
- a chart of these changes, the operator reaches conclusions on the
- honesty of the person being examined. The physiological data may be
- quite accurate, "but there is no evidence that these recorded changes
- are unique to deception". Such factors as "anger, fear, anxiety,
- surprise, shame, embarrassment, and resentment can cause identical
- changes".
-
- (10) PORTRAYAL OF A "SATANIC CEREMONY" IN A DAY-CARE CENTER, WITH VIOLENCE
- ATTEMPTED TO PREVENT POLICE FROM SEEING IT.
-
- No Satanic religious ceremony has EVER been held in a day-care facility,
- nor have implements or persons involved in such a ceremony EVER been found in
- the way your film implied. No law-enforcement official curious about any
- activity of the Church of Satan or Temple of Set has EVER been resisted with
- violence.
-
- To further highlight the film's ignorance of authentic Satanism, a ritual
- knife was referred to as an "athame", and the "Satanists" were shown in red
- robes. An athame is a device used by the Wicca pagan religion, not by
- Satanists. And Satanists do not wear red robes for rituals. [Perhaps you
- confused us with Catholic cardinals?]
-
- Even more preposterous was the film's use of "Satanic names" such as Isis,
- Medea, Triton, and Pegasus. Obviously you - or Roland Summit, or whoever else
- your "expert" on Satanism happened to be - knows as little about mythology as
- about athames. In Egyptian mythology Isis is the wife of Osiris, OPPONENT of
- the "Satanic" god Set. Medea is a figure from Greek mythology having nothing
- to do with Satanic symbolism. Triton is a fish, and Pegasus is a horse.
- Genuine magical names are chosen carefully, with precise attention to the
- mythology in question. Or perhaps you intended your "conspiracy of Satanists"
- to include a frogman and a jockey?
-
- (11) ACTOR JOHN SHEA'S CITING OF "THE PRESIDIO, WEST POINT, AND EL PASO" AS
- PROVEN INCIDENTS OF SUCH ABUSE AS PORTRAYED IN THE FILM.
-
- PRESIDIO OF SAN FRANCISCO: This 1986-87 scandal was simply one more scam in
- the "McMartin copycat" series. Neither prosecutions nor convictions of anyone
- resulted. A Baptist minister by the name of Gary Hambright was initially
- targeted in that witch-hunt; later on an Army chaplain decided to attack my
- wife and myself as well.
- All charges against Hambright were ultimately thrown out by the court or
- withdrawn by the prosecution, and thus he is entitled to the presumption of
- his innocence. More than that, the U.S. Federal Public Defenders in his case
- state that the evidence quite clearly exonerates him of any such crimes. Ask
- them yourself: Ms. Nanci Clarence & Mr. Jeff Hansen, Federal Building, San
- Francisco - (415) 556-7712.
- No charges were ever brought against me or Mrs. Aquino, because the
- evidence conclusively proves not only that we could not have committed crimes
- as alleged, but also that they never occurred at all. On the other hand, I
- preferred court-martial charges against that Army chaplain, Lawrence
- Adams-Thompson, for making knowingly false and malicious accusations against
- us. I am still at this time insisting that the U.S. Army Criminal
- Investigation Division follow through with investigation of these charges
- which I preferred, and of Adams-Thompson's attempt to defraud the U.S.
- Government of several million dollars in fraudulent monetary claims based on
- his fake allegations. [Following the West Point pattern as noted below,
- parents in the Presidio witch-hunt filed over $66 million in claims against
- the government in an attempt to make a little money from what they had put
- their children through.]
-
- WEST POINT: This July 1984 scandal began after a girl came home bleeding in
- the vaginal area. In the usual pattern allegations then mushroomed to include
- several children, animal sacrifice, pornography, and "rituals involving people
- wearing bloody, Dracula-type masks". Ultimately 950 people were interviewed
- including hundreds of children aged 2-6. No charges were ever brought against
- anyone because of lack of evidence. Nevertheless a Captain Grote refused a
- promotion to Major and proceeded to accuse Army officials of covering up "the
- presence of ritualized/Satanic child abuse at West Point". [There were no
- Satanists at West Point at the time.] Perhaps as disappointing to the accusers
- under the circumstances was the fact that 8 families had filed claims against
- the government totalling $110 million, easy wealth which was unlikely to be
- realized if the scam would not be officially endorsed.
-
- EL PASO: In June 1985 this McMartin-copycat got under way after parents
- questioned their 3-1/2-year-old daughter about a word she had used. Two YMCA
- female teachers were eventually accused as the feeding-frenzy grew. Nine
- children talked about monsters, being kissed and fondled, and "having pennies
- put in their pee-pees". This case was prosecuted, and both women were found
- guilty. One conviction was later overturned, and [as of the most recent
- account I read] the other is on appeal.
- Again it is interesting to consider the role that monetary claims played in
- this affair. Insurers for the YMCA reached a $600,000-plus settlement with
- parents after an appellate court overturned the conviction of one of the two
- female workers accused. Parents had originally sued for more than $24 million.
-
- If there is any "pattern" to be demonstrated by these cases, it would seem to
- be one of parental greed rather than of "Satanic child molesting".
-
- The United States has now been through several years of such disgraceful
- witch-hunts, which films such as MUFFIN MAN purport to excuse and justify. To
- the extent that audiences accept its theme, you have acted to stimulate and
- encourage further outrages of this sort. This is genuine child abuse, as it is
- always the children, along with the targeted adults, who are the sufferers
- from these orgies of greed and hatred.
-
- It is ironic that, at the same time these ferocious witch-hunts are being
- promoted, the country is bewailing its lack of adequate child day-care
- services. Under these circumstances only a lunatic would have anything to do
- with operating or working in a day-care service, no matter WHAT salaries are
- offered. Nor does one have to be male to be targeted; such witch-hunts have
- victimized young and old, male and female alike.
-
- If this is the situation you sought to endorse by your broadcast of MUFFIN
- MAN, then I expect you are quite pleased with yourselves. If after considering
- the facts cited in this letter you have second thoughts about what you did,
- then perhaps CBS should make a statement to that effect and remove this
- disgraceful film from further circulation. It belongs in a trash-bin along
- with Nazi Germany's THE ETERNAL JEW and similar hate-propaganda filth.
-
- Sincerely,
-
- (signed)
- Michael A. Aquino
-